New Automotive Replacement Lamp...Whelen Halo

Hey guys, so some of you may have remembered from the last time I posted here talking about converting the taillights of my 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid to LED. Well, due to thermal management, as well as trying to keep with the stock look of the vehicle, I abondened it do to a lack of time. I did however replace the 3rd stop lamp with 4 Luxeon III stars, and that seems to be working out well.

What I am posting here for today is a newer product from Whelen Engineering (the Emergency Vehicle lighting leader) that is a DOT approved....yeah that's right, replacement for the Crown Victoria. It replaces the park/turn lamp, as well as stop/turn lamps, while adding additional hideaway warning to these housings form within the same unit. It does require the replacement and integration of their own flasher/brain unit. However it also deals with managing the load on the unit so it does not trigger the "lamp out" warning on the stock ford flasher.

I have been toying around with the idea of getting these for my own vehicle...realizing they would not be DOT approved...but they should work okay, as well as provide me with the new warning illumination I am looking for (I'm an EMT/FF in my town).

Here are some pictures of the new units:

Interesting product. It looks like it has six lateral-pointing Lux I's, plus one pointing up with a collimator lens. I wonder what kind of driver they used. I did a couple of home-made versions of this for my signal lights, one with Lamina 2000's and one with Lux IIIs. Both versions were brighter than the stock incan 7440's and a lot more attention getting.

Lamina version:


Luxeon version:


Compared to stock:


Short Video

Be prepared for some "slight" sticker shock if you plan on installing the Whelen Super-LED Hide-A-Way HALO Series on your personal vehicle.

http://www.whelen.com/pb/Automotive/PriceLists/PL06.1WL_Addendum_3.pdf

Yeah, they ain't cheap. Also as far as a driver...it is external. Since these also function as warning lights, all power comes from an external "brain box".

I think its actually not using a LED at the top of the lens...it is almost as if the top lens is relocating a bit of the light from the LED's on the sides of the lens to the front.

I actually am thinking now of trying to replicate the same thing with the current Luxeon III stars I have...however the thermal management of the unit may get to be a bit much to regulate.

With over $300.00 for the unit...I think I could actually make the unit myself...with the exception of the lens.

I've been looking for aftermarket replacements for my Crown Vic's tail/brake/turn signals and backup lights, and this new LED configuration is about the closest thing I've seen with respect to a configurable flash pattern. There's got to be a more inexpensive solution, though; Whelen can't be the only vendor with this type of product.

I've been looking at the Able Sho-Me interweave red/blue LED array as a replacement for my 3rd brake light. It probably would not meet DOT (and might not even allow my personal vehicle to pass state inspection), but coupled with a clear lens, it would be a great "slick" solution.

Able Sho-Me Interweave LED lighthead: http://www.swps.com/11-2000-rb0.html

EOppie said:

I think its actually not using a LED at the top of the lens...it is almost as if the top lens is relocating a bit of the light from the LED's on the sides of the lens to the front.

Click to expand...

I think you're right. First I thought that "dome" on top was a lense covering a hidden LED, but I magnified the image and it looks like it's just the screw for holding down the optics. My bad.

Anyway, it you're thinking of using Lux III's, you better have some seroius heatsinking, unless you want to under-drive the units, no more than say around 150-200 milliamps, in which case you might as well use the cheaper Lux I's or even 5mm's. You'll have less of a problem if your desig is for the turn signal indicators becasue of the ~50% duty cycle, but for the brake/tail lights, thermal management is definitely a major challege.

woah... i didn't know i made them

it has chester on the bulb's sticker!

chester is my name btw, if you can't figure out what the heck i am talking about.

frenzee said:

Anyway, it you're thinking of using Lux III's, you better have some seroius heatsinking, unless you want to under-drive the units, no more than say around 150-200 milliamps, in which case you might as well use the cheaper Lux I's or even 5mm's. .

Click to expand...

I was thinking about either underdriving my current Lux III's, or pick up some Lux I's and try and replicate what they have done. I have a CC5W driver from taskled...if I connect more than the reccomended 3 LED's to the driver...would I acomplish underdriving the unit?

I think I may also abonden the idea of keeping the driver anywhere near the light assembly itself, and move to more of what they have shown here with an external "brain box" elsewhere.

EOppie said:

I was thinking about either underdriving my current Lux III's, or pick up some Lux I's and try and replicate what they have done. I have a CC5W driver from taskled...if I connect more than the reccomended 3 LED's to the driver...would I acomplish underdriving the unit?

Click to expand...

CC5W delivers either 750 or 1000 ma of constant current. There is no way you could drive Lux III's at that current level without a heavy-duty heatsink. Besides, I think the CC5W board may be too big to fit into the housing - it would be in my case where the opening is only 20mm in diameter. You could put it outside the housing, but then you have to either modify the pigtail or get a second pigtail or cut into the wires that feed into it.

You CAN direct drive six Luxeons (I's or III's) connected in series from the car's 12v which will deliver around 150-200 milliamps to to the circuit and you won't have much of a problem with heat. OR, you could drive five in series, but you'll need a series resistor of about 1-5 ohms, depending on the binning of the LEDs. I have tried both of these configurations and they work well, but I did have a free convection heatsink.

Before epoxying everything together, I suggest you hook things up in a prototyping circuit and test it with a digital volt meter on the actual car rather than off of a power supply. Reason being that things behave differently in a real world situation. For example, I found out that in my car although the voltage at the battery reads 13.8-14.4v, the tail light assemply only gets 12.25v. Also, in one of my dual contact prototypes (7443), after I had everything finished and plugged in, I found out that if you drive the same set of LEDs for both low and high settings, it won't work - at least in my car. The voltage to the low setting feeds back to the high setting and confuses the "brain" that controls the lights so nothing works unless you isolate the two with a bridge rectifier or use two separate circuits for each. Oh well, live an learn.

Sorry to hijack the thread

One more thing. I experimented with a simple T03 Radio Shack 12v Voltage regulator to drive any numner of Luxeons (up to 4). This regulator has a built-in 1 amp current limiter and also a thermal shut off (at around 120C I think). I thought I share that info.

Hmm....I thought that you needed a driver in order to make it work. I didn't realize (or put two and two together) that you could drive a series of 6 LuxI's or III's direct from the 12V of the car.

I would be mounting a driver outside the housing, as well as modifying the vehicle pigtail since I would like to make it 2 color (Amber/Blue) to try and replicate what they have done here. The one complex (at lease for me) thing I run into is using the same set of amber LED's for both Turn and Park...since obviously the turn signal is much brighter than simply the parking lights.

frenzee said:

Luxeon version:

Click to expand...

Is this being direct driven from the 12V of the car? I count 10 LED's in total there...

Is this configuration for Turn only?

Hey guys, FYI.


I found out that they are underdriving the Amber LEDs in order to get the Parking/Running Lamp, then applying full power for the Turn Signal. Anyone know of a way to replicate this?

All of the electronics are external, and they are using 3 Amber LED's and 3 of the Warning Color LED's

This particular prototype was direct driven and is still working perfectly in my car after about a month of everyday use. It consists of two banks of five Lux III's connected in series. I used two hollow aluminum tubes as heat sinks. Heat was not a serious problem because I use it in the blinker (turn/hazard) mode which roughly has a 50% duty cycle, however if you use it in constant-on mode you will probably smoke the LEDs. I tested it in blink mode for 10 minutes and although it got pretty hot, the temperature never exceeded 100C. In the other version with the Lamina I used a .5 ohm resistor. I ddin't use a driver in either becasue I wanted to find out if it was even necessary.

As far as using heat pipes mentioned in you other thread, I did experiment with those. As long as you're going the external heat sink route, I think even a single 5mm heat pipe should be more than capable of handling your needs. I hooked up one 5mm x 150mm heat pipe to 5 red Lux III's driven at 2000 milliamps and connected the other end to a fairly large aluminum finned heat sink and left it on for a few hours. Not a problem.

Regarding the buck driver issue (also in your other thread), I think if you get one that is externally dimmable, you can accomplish what you're describing. You will need to connect the low signal with a series resistor and a pull-down resistor to the dimmer terminal.

EOppie said:

Is this being direct driven from the 12V of the car? I count 10 LED's in total there...

Is this configuration for Turn only?

Click to expand...

Wow..being direct driven?

I Think its time for me to place an order for some LuxIII's...however buying 20 of them seems a bit excessive...over $80 and thats just for 2 lights!

I guess I need to research more about the buck driver in order to understand it better...

Instead of using the buck driver, it almost seems like it would be an easier route to use half of the LED's for Running lights, then turn them all on for a brake function.

I found 6 Amber LuxIII stars that I am going to start playing around with the idea of them being direct driven from the 12V. What, if any, thermal management should I try to use?

Is it a problem direct driving these 6 LuxIII stars from the 12v of the vehicle?